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Take the brain of a trucker who's a national burping champion, put it in the enormous body of the average American, pumped and raw, who drives around in huge pickups and Harley Davidsons; fill him with liters of Bud, let his hair grow like an '80s metalhead with a controlled designation of origin; hand him a Les Paul and Marshall amps. You get Zakk Wylde, the mastermind behind Black Label Society.
This beast breaks into the music world when the man once known as Ozzy Osbourne hears the then seventeen-year-old American lad play. A tender love blossoms between the two, and since then, Zakk accompanies Ozzy in his solo career. After creating the "heavy southern rock" group Pride'n'Glory (from which only one eponymous album was born), Mr. Wylde brings Black Label Society to life. An important chapter of genuine metal, they're based on devastating guitars, rhythms that can knock down walls, and a sound that often recalls Pantera, the group of Zakk's old buddy, Dimebag Darrel.
The most successful album is undoubtedly "The Blessed Hellride," released in 2003. On the cover, a small silver sticker says: "Featuring the legendary guitarist Zakk Wylde", and after just half a minute of the first song, "Stoned and Drunk", you realize that boastful sticker speaks the truth. Bending, harmonics, overdrive to the max, fearsome scales, and an unmistakable, raw and violent style, yet absolutely not eardrum-splitting. It flows well; songs that instantly get stuck in your head and, if you become passionate, you never forget.
And from the heavy-drunk style riffs, punctuated by Craig Nunenmacher's deadly double bass, it transitions to acoustic tracks where Wylde's own voice, singing throughout the album, also accompanies the piano; acoustic songs but with sometimes gloomy and melancholic atmospheres. In short, the tender-hearted Viking knows how to bring out both brutal metal arrogance and calm post-hangover melancholy. In every case, the dominant element of his music is the sacred nectar of Odin: Fuckin BEER! The album I'd put in my tank stereo to cruise around the city with the windows down, and while I cannonade, off with "Stoned and Drunk", "Doomsday Jesus", "Stillborn" (with Ozzy), "Suffering Overdue", "The Blessed Hellride", "Funeral Bell", "Final Solution", "Destruction Overdrive", "Blackened Waters", "We Live No More" and "Dead Meadow". One after another. Then I go home and get properly drunk. (I've summarized in two lines the philosophy and particularly the ethic of Zakkie). For anyone who likes the origins of Heavy Metal updated to today, this album is a must-have! And you can't miss the other B.L.S. albums either, especially Sonic Brew, 1919 Eternal, and Stronger Than Death.
And as Zakk would say in one long, singular burp: Strength, Determination, Merciless, Forever. Which is the band's motto.
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